Carniphage, I've read a lot of words about the fabled Apple TV, but your proposed content structure makes the most sense to me, since it keeps the Cable companies "in the loop"
Exactly. Any move by Apple to replace content providers will result in Apple being shunned by the industry.
Apple would have a fancy box, but zero content. The model I propose turns the TV into an accessible publishing platform that lets consumers hook-up with content providers. Both win.
I have been thinking about the Apple TV. This is what I reckon we are going to see:
The problem with TV now is that all the various services that people use arrive as wires in the back of the TV. It is awkward to switch sources. It's not possible to browse channels visually. The more content you buy, the more remote controls and boxes you accumulate.
Apple can solve this mess by moving the point of convergence from the back of the TV to an Apple data centre. The centre acts as a building-sized TiVo. It takes in all the channels, records them and then delivers them on to the consumer's TV via the internet.
The end-user buys a TV with an internet connection pointing at a customised service streamed from Apple's data centre.
A user wanting to subscribe to a cable network would just click on buy to subscribe to the service. Apple shares revenue with the provider (with a 30:70 revenue split). The service provider has nothing to do. They accept this revenue split because Apple users don't need dishes, recorders, installation engineers, cable cards or any of that crap.
The user sees ALL their paid content in a screen with live previews of all channels. Every channel is being recorded. To access all this content you only need one interface and one remote. You can access it on an iPad too.
Hey Mr Wu, what you are talking about is actually device independent. It's all about content deals so they could do nothing with the hardware and we still get this.
Or not.
Personally I'm going with not cause it is Wu and after all. ANd what Wu says pretty much never comes true.
1st - We can already choose our channels "a la carte" where I lived (which is montreal)
2nd - Never forgets Tel co and Cable co are the ones controlling the "pipe" into your home. If Apple leaves them out of the loop they will charge insane fees for your internet connection.
3rd - I have IPTV with Bell in Montreal. There line capacity at my house is 50 mbps. They only allow internet up to 20 mbps, reserving 30 mbps for the TV feed.
The amount of bandwight needed for a internet only TV system would be INSANE. IPTV REQUIRES participation of the "pipe" providers, its not possible if you stream content from the net all the time. And IPTV is a complex system that requires fiber optic lines into nodes close to the distribution sites. IPTV does NOT mean streaming video feed from the net. In a IPTV system, TV feeds are stream from servers that are close to your home and those servers received broadcast feeds. If customers would stream from a central point, the network would collapse under the load.
Seriously, I think that the release of an apple television set would be dependent on getting the programing licensing ducks in a row first, then release the sets.
They could release them w/o the agreements, but the product would be just an expensive "hobby".
Maybe even a release of the TVs with partial agreements in place, but the more popular the sets become, the more difficult getting the remaining agreements will become.
Please please please let this be true. I have wanted this since the first time I signed up for cable/satellite. If I could pay a price, even a freaking $1 per channel I would. I cut the chord just over a year ago and I love it, but I miss some of my old shows that Netflix hasn't picked up on yet. If I could have antenna plus a few channels like History, FX, Comedy Central, HGTV (for the wife), DIY, and some kid channels...I'd be in heaven.
i cut the cord a few years ago. The only issue I have is watching nfl or college BBall. Otherwise.......fsck-em
Apple can solve this mess by moving the point of convergence from the back of the TV to an Apple data centre. The centre acts as a building-sized TiVo. It takes in all the channels, records them and then delivers them on to the consumer's TV via the internet..
Or they could stick with what they are doing but at a lower price/higher quality/both and not care about the cable companies anymore than they have already. Deal directly with the content providers and such.
Which for some is even better since why should you have to pay $20 a month all year for a station you only watch 1 show from. Why not just get the one show for one month's service fee or just a tad more or less.
Maybe even a release of the TVs with partial agreements in place, but the more popular the sets become, the more difficult getting the remaining agreements will become.
If the reason for not wanting to sign an agreement is a fear that it won't pay off then the more popular the sets become the easier the agreement will be to secure. Because Apple will have a confirmed audience to put before them.
That is if the agreement only works on this fabled TV. Which is unlikely. Whatever they do is more likely to be device independent so they would have the collected Apple TV users, iPad, computers etc to work with.
Or they could stick with what they are doing but at a lower price/higher quality/both and not care about the cable companies anymore than they have already. Deal directly with the content providers and such.
Which for some is even better since why should you have to pay $20 a month all year for a station you only watch 1 show from. Why not just get the one show for one month's service fee or just a tad more or less.
The content provider could sell through AppleTV whatever packages they want. Just like music vendors who have the choice to sell whole albums or singles on iTunes.
I think the market will quickly inform vendors the best ways to publish content on this new platform.
It sounds great, but I haven't heard anything yet that would allow me to dump my cable provider (Comcrap, which I'd sorely love to do.) I'd still have to use them for broadband Internet.
What's more, there's a 250GB traffic limit on customers. That limit could easily be broached if you add hours of streaming HDTV daily on top of the the amount of traffic that gets used for other activities (surfing, upload/download of software files, email with attachments, Skype, etc.)
I'd really hate to have to pay Comcrap MORE money if I dumped the cable portion of my services. And even if they raised the cap, I'd expect them to also raise the price of Inter to reclaim their loss of cable revenue and/or throttle back connection speeds (because that's the kind if company they are.)
I also seriously wonder if their network can handle thousands or millions of simultaneous streaming Internet connections.
I agree completely. I don't want to waste my bandwidth watching TV shows. That's rediculous. I would top out my monthly limit in a few days. I find it difficult enough just watching streaming videos from YouTube.....
As its been said many times before, it's the content that's the thing. You can have the best interface in the world, but if you don't have content..... Jeez, here in Canada we can't even listen to Pandora, or even watch American commercials. How the hell are they going to negotiate national cultural regulations times 150 countries???
I just can't see how an Apple TV will work, without it just being a fancy pants monitor. No, I don't want just a glorified version on iTunes either. That's a non-starter.
It's true that Internet providers would make some money still because whatever Apple does it will require and Internet connection to work. But even so, if Apple's fee is manageable, I think we can all still end up paying less. If, for example, you pay $70 a month for cable and instead Apple charges $30 for what you need, I doubt additional charges for using up more bandwidth would allow cable operators to tack on $40 to your bill. If there is an additional $20, for example, the consumer can still come out ahead. There would also be an advantage to eliminating a set-top box from the equation. HD PVRs are still relatively costly.
Service providers, in this model, still make lots of money and we might end up paying less. Win/Win all around. Of course it would take about five years for the process to work its way through and it would be painful at first but over the long haul, this could go rather well. Remember, too, that even those who do not wish to buy into the Apple model will benefit because cable operators are going to be forced into changing their model to compete with Apple's. A good thing all around if Apple does well.
Do we not recall how difficult it was for Apple to get any movie and television studios on board after the AppleTV was demoed? Do we not remember NBC pulling out of iTunes Store for a year or so? Are we not seeing how they are still not wanting to give Apple any play by only allowing content to be bought (and sometimes rented) at high prices? So what exactly does Apple have to offer that will not negatively affect the networks solid, guaranteed deals with their local affiliates and distributors?
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
Come on guys ... what TV show isn't formulaic? You either like it or you don't. 13 makes House watchable
If I didn't watch a TV show because it had an opening middle and conclusion then I wouldn't be watching any TV dramas.
Over the decades TV has gotten considerably better. The writers keep the show consistent and can plan for season or series long arcs that make for a more rounded viewing experience.
Please please please let this be true. I have wanted this since the first time I signed up for cable/satellite. If I could pay a price, even a freaking $1 per channel I would. I cut the chord just over a year ago and I love it, but I miss some of my old shows that Netflix hasn't picked up on yet. If I could have antenna plus a few channels like History, FX, Comedy Central, HGTV (for the wife), DIY, and some kid channels...I'd be in heaven.
I concur. I dumped cable for the simple fact that it was expensive, and I hated paying for channels I never watched.
The number one thing that has to happen for ANY type of Internet based TV, is for all customers to be connected via fiber-optics. That is a minimum. And that is years and years away. That will cost billions for the infrastructure to be put into place.
Then I can see Apple making deals with cable companies, or even their own data center. When I downloaded Lion, it took one and a half hours! How long would it take before the content I wanted to watch was even ready for me? 10 minutes, twenty before enough of a buffer existed to make it worth my while to watch?
It will be interesting to see how (if) Apple can make it work, but, realistically, the Internet just isn't ready for the type of service that really needs to be available to make this thing fly.....
The number one thing that has to happen for ANY type of Internet based TV, is for all customers to be connected via fiber-optics. That is a minimum. And that is years and years away. That will cost billions for the infrastructure to be put into place.
I'd imagine Apple's initial solution would be flexible in terms of the bandwidth it requires. They could dynamically throttle the bandwidth based on what the receiving device reported back.
8mbit ADSL is fast enough for a single HD channel.
Fibre to the cabinet technology is certainly fast enough for multiple HD streams.
For the service to be valuable - it does not have to be available to every consumer.
Apple can solve this mess by moving the point of convergence from the back of the TV to an Apple data centre. The centre acts as a building-sized TiVo. It takes in all the channels, records them and then delivers them on to the consumer's TV via the internet.
That would be a nice concept if it woud be possible to implement. To do this Apple would need to build data centers in each city and send only SD feeds. Netflix, which is a single feed stream is already choking the internet. Forget about feeding multiple HD feeds to large quantities of household, its just not possbile.
Please please please let this be true. I have wanted this since the first time I signed up for cable/satellite. If I could pay a price, even a freaking $1 per channel I would. I cut the chord just over a year ago and I love it, but I miss some of my old shows that Netflix hasn't picked up on yet. If I could have antenna plus a few channels like History, FX, Comedy Central, HGTV (for the wife), DIY, and some kid channels...I'd be in heaven.
$1 per channel per month? I don't see that happening. Remember, you're going for Ã* la carte pricing which means you pay a premium. Lets say right now your cable company has 100,000 customers all subscribing for a particular base channel station. Now you want to pay $1/month for it but it's an unpopular channel and only 5,000 (5%) want to subscribe to it. That means they are only getting $5/month from the cable company. The station was also getting hefty advertisement payments but now that the subscriber rate has dropped advertisers have dropped out completely. The station has gone under because the environment that made it work is no longer supporting it. You've now lost a channel.
I bet people watch plenty of channels and don't realize how much they watch them or that a particular show is on a channel. Can an Ã* la carte method sustain the future of television networks or will umbrella companies have to consolidate shows differently in order to make a buck? Will we see CBS split NCIS an NCIS: LA Â? two shows with high ratings Â? to different channels to maximize the number of stations you rent per month? Will they even go so far as to move a popular show across multiple channels week to week to maximize their return?
What people are wanting is to destroy something that will make it more expensive for customers unless you watch very little TV. Only those that want some select show or two on some cable network could possibly benefit from getting rid of the cable TV model.
Then you have consider how this will affect your cable interest costs. If your cable company loses 1/2 of it 100,000 TV paying customers they still have to pay all the networks the same amount of money. So do they double the costs of their loyal TV viewing customers? Not without losing more TV viewing customers that way. They have to jack the prices on your internet service, they now throttle users speeds, they now put in upper level caps. You're also using more internet than before because that is where your content is coming from. Can you blame them for trying to protect their business? I can't.
I'd imagine Apple's initial solution would be flexible in terms of the bandwidth it requires. They could dynamically throttle the bandwidth based on what the receiving device reported back.
8mbit ADSL is fast enough for a single HD channel.
Fibre to the cabinet technology is certainly fast enough for multiple HD streams.
For the service to be valuable - it does not have to be available to every consumer.
C.
Seriously people here need to grap the basic concept of IPTV. google it or something. I have it, I know how it works and I am telling you its impossible to implenment a netflix style system for TV. Bell fibe offers it in canada and I think AT&T has the same system in the US. Go get see how it works or something.
It sounds great, but I haven't heard anything yet that would allow me to dump my cable provider (Comcrap, which I'd sorely love to do.) I'd still have to use them for broadband Internet.
For better or worse, Comcast is in position to essentially clear whatever content deal Apple puts together if Apple wants it to be comprehensive.
Comcast is the default cable provider is numerous markets. Comcast owns or controls NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC Sports (Versus until January 2012), USA, SciFi and Bravo, owns the rights to most of the shows that air on all of those networks, and owns the rights to a huge TV catalog.
And Comcast owns one of the major film studios and a huge film catalog.
Disney, Fox, WB, and Paramount will all come along when it gets time to make a deal. If there is a potential holdout that Apple would go forward without, it's probably CBS.
That would be a nice concept if it woud be possible to implement. To do this Apple would need to build data centers in each city and send only SD feeds. Netflix, which is a single feed stream is already choking the internet. Forget about feeding multiple HD feeds to large quantities of household, its just not possbile.
Apple already are streaming HD movies to anyone who rents them. The internet has yet to die.
Most TV is much more heavily compressed.
There's a gaming service called "onLive" - it lets users play video games, which are running on PCs in a data centre. It does this by streaming video (at quite high definitions and high frame rates) from the data centre to each user. Impossible as this sounds, it works today. And we can assume that within 18months, Moore's law will let it work twice as good.
Comments
Carniphage, I've read a lot of words about the fabled Apple TV, but your proposed content structure makes the most sense to me, since it keeps the Cable companies "in the loop"
Exactly. Any move by Apple to replace content providers will result in Apple being shunned by the industry.
Apple would have a fancy box, but zero content. The model I propose turns the TV into an accessible publishing platform that lets consumers hook-up with content providers. Both win.
C.
I have been thinking about the Apple TV. This is what I reckon we are going to see:
The problem with TV now is that all the various services that people use arrive as wires in the back of the TV. It is awkward to switch sources. It's not possible to browse channels visually. The more content you buy, the more remote controls and boxes you accumulate.
Apple can solve this mess by moving the point of convergence from the back of the TV to an Apple data centre. The centre acts as a building-sized TiVo. It takes in all the channels, records them and then delivers them on to the consumer's TV via the internet.
The end-user buys a TV with an internet connection pointing at a customised service streamed from Apple's data centre.
A user wanting to subscribe to a cable network would just click on buy to subscribe to the service. Apple shares revenue with the provider (with a 30:70 revenue split). The service provider has nothing to do. They accept this revenue split because Apple users don't need dishes, recorders, installation engineers, cable cards or any of that crap.
The user sees ALL their paid content in a screen with live previews of all channels. Every channel is being recorded. To access all this content you only need one interface and one remote. You can access it on an iPad too.
I reckon this could be a big deal.
C.
Or not.
Personally I'm going with not cause it is Wu and after all. ANd what Wu says pretty much never comes true.
2nd - Never forgets Tel co and Cable co are the ones controlling the "pipe" into your home. If Apple leaves them out of the loop they will charge insane fees for your internet connection.
3rd - I have IPTV with Bell in Montreal. There line capacity at my house is 50 mbps. They only allow internet up to 20 mbps, reserving 30 mbps for the TV feed.
The amount of bandwight needed for a internet only TV system would be INSANE. IPTV REQUIRES participation of the "pipe" providers, its not possible if you stream content from the net all the time. And IPTV is a complex system that requires fiber optic lines into nodes close to the distribution sites. IPTV does NOT mean streaming video feed from the net. In a IPTV system, TV feeds are stream from servers that are close to your home and those servers received broadcast feeds. If customers would stream from a central point, the network would collapse under the load.
What a ridiculous way to start an article.
Seriously, I think that the release of an apple television set would be dependent on getting the programing licensing ducks in a row first, then release the sets.
They could release them w/o the agreements, but the product would be just an expensive "hobby".
Maybe even a release of the TVs with partial agreements in place, but the more popular the sets become, the more difficult getting the remaining agreements will become.
Please please please let this be true. I have wanted this since the first time I signed up for cable/satellite. If I could pay a price, even a freaking $1 per channel I would. I cut the chord just over a year ago and I love it, but I miss some of my old shows that Netflix hasn't picked up on yet. If I could have antenna plus a few channels like History, FX, Comedy Central, HGTV (for the wife), DIY, and some kid channels...I'd be in heaven.
i cut the cord a few years ago. The only issue I have is watching nfl or college BBall. Otherwise.......fsck-em
Apple can solve this mess by moving the point of convergence from the back of the TV to an Apple data centre. The centre acts as a building-sized TiVo. It takes in all the channels, records them and then delivers them on to the consumer's TV via the internet..
Or they could stick with what they are doing but at a lower price/higher quality/both and not care about the cable companies anymore than they have already. Deal directly with the content providers and such.
Which for some is even better since why should you have to pay $20 a month all year for a station you only watch 1 show from. Why not just get the one show for one month's service fee or just a tad more or less.
Maybe even a release of the TVs with partial agreements in place, but the more popular the sets become, the more difficult getting the remaining agreements will become.
If the reason for not wanting to sign an agreement is a fear that it won't pay off then the more popular the sets become the easier the agreement will be to secure. Because Apple will have a confirmed audience to put before them.
That is if the agreement only works on this fabled TV. Which is unlikely. Whatever they do is more likely to be device independent so they would have the collected Apple TV users, iPad, computers etc to work with.
Or they could stick with what they are doing but at a lower price/higher quality/both and not care about the cable companies anymore than they have already. Deal directly with the content providers and such.
Which for some is even better since why should you have to pay $20 a month all year for a station you only watch 1 show from. Why not just get the one show for one month's service fee or just a tad more or less.
The content provider could sell through AppleTV whatever packages they want. Just like music vendors who have the choice to sell whole albums or singles on iTunes.
I think the market will quickly inform vendors the best ways to publish content on this new platform.
C.
It sounds great, but I haven't heard anything yet that would allow me to dump my cable provider (Comcrap, which I'd sorely love to do.) I'd still have to use them for broadband Internet.
What's more, there's a 250GB traffic limit on customers. That limit could easily be broached if you add hours of streaming HDTV daily on top of the the amount of traffic that gets used for other activities (surfing, upload/download of software files, email with attachments, Skype, etc.)
I'd really hate to have to pay Comcrap MORE money if I dumped the cable portion of my services. And even if they raised the cap, I'd expect them to also raise the price of Inter to reclaim their loss of cable revenue and/or throttle back connection speeds (because that's the kind if company they are.)
I also seriously wonder if their network can handle thousands or millions of simultaneous streaming Internet connections.
I agree completely. I don't want to waste my bandwidth watching TV shows. That's rediculous. I would top out my monthly limit in a few days. I find it difficult enough just watching streaming videos from YouTube.....
As its been said many times before, it's the content that's the thing. You can have the best interface in the world, but if you don't have content..... Jeez, here in Canada we can't even listen to Pandora, or even watch American commercials. How the hell are they going to negotiate national cultural regulations times 150 countries???
I just can't see how an Apple TV will work, without it just being a fancy pants monitor. No, I don't want just a glorified version on iTunes either. That's a non-starter.
Service providers, in this model, still make lots of money and we might end up paying less. Win/Win all around. Of course it would take about five years for the process to work its way through and it would be painful at first but over the long haul, this could go rather well. Remember, too, that even those who do not wish to buy into the Apple model will benefit because cable operators are going to be forced into changing their model to compete with Apple's. A good thing all around if Apple does well.
Come on guys ... what TV show isn't formulaic? You either like it or you don't. 13 makes House watchable
If I didn't watch a TV show because it had an opening middle and conclusion then I wouldn't be watching any TV dramas.
Over the decades TV has gotten considerably better. The writers keep the show consistent and can plan for season or series long arcs that make for a more rounded viewing experience.
Please please please let this be true. I have wanted this since the first time I signed up for cable/satellite. If I could pay a price, even a freaking $1 per channel I would. I cut the chord just over a year ago and I love it, but I miss some of my old shows that Netflix hasn't picked up on yet. If I could have antenna plus a few channels like History, FX, Comedy Central, HGTV (for the wife), DIY, and some kid channels...I'd be in heaven.
I concur. I dumped cable for the simple fact that it was expensive, and I hated paying for channels I never watched.
Then I can see Apple making deals with cable companies, or even their own data center. When I downloaded Lion, it took one and a half hours! How long would it take before the content I wanted to watch was even ready for me? 10 minutes, twenty before enough of a buffer existed to make it worth my while to watch?
It will be interesting to see how (if) Apple can make it work, but, realistically, the Internet just isn't ready for the type of service that really needs to be available to make this thing fly.....
The number one thing that has to happen for ANY type of Internet based TV, is for all customers to be connected via fiber-optics. That is a minimum. And that is years and years away. That will cost billions for the infrastructure to be put into place.
I'd imagine Apple's initial solution would be flexible in terms of the bandwidth it requires. They could dynamically throttle the bandwidth based on what the receiving device reported back.
8mbit ADSL is fast enough for a single HD channel.
Fibre to the cabinet technology is certainly fast enough for multiple HD streams.
For the service to be valuable - it does not have to be available to every consumer.
C.
Apple can solve this mess by moving the point of convergence from the back of the TV to an Apple data centre. The centre acts as a building-sized TiVo. It takes in all the channels, records them and then delivers them on to the consumer's TV via the internet.
That would be a nice concept if it woud be possible to implement. To do this Apple would need to build data centers in each city and send only SD feeds. Netflix, which is a single feed stream is already choking the internet. Forget about feeding multiple HD feeds to large quantities of household, its just not possbile.
Please please please let this be true. I have wanted this since the first time I signed up for cable/satellite. If I could pay a price, even a freaking $1 per channel I would. I cut the chord just over a year ago and I love it, but I miss some of my old shows that Netflix hasn't picked up on yet. If I could have antenna plus a few channels like History, FX, Comedy Central, HGTV (for the wife), DIY, and some kid channels...I'd be in heaven.
$1 per channel per month? I don't see that happening. Remember, you're going for Ã* la carte pricing which means you pay a premium. Lets say right now your cable company has 100,000 customers all subscribing for a particular base channel station. Now you want to pay $1/month for it but it's an unpopular channel and only 5,000 (5%) want to subscribe to it. That means they are only getting $5/month from the cable company. The station was also getting hefty advertisement payments but now that the subscriber rate has dropped advertisers have dropped out completely. The station has gone under because the environment that made it work is no longer supporting it. You've now lost a channel.
I bet people watch plenty of channels and don't realize how much they watch them or that a particular show is on a channel. Can an Ã* la carte method sustain the future of television networks or will umbrella companies have to consolidate shows differently in order to make a buck? Will we see CBS split NCIS an NCIS: LA Â? two shows with high ratings Â? to different channels to maximize the number of stations you rent per month? Will they even go so far as to move a popular show across multiple channels week to week to maximize their return?
What people are wanting is to destroy something that will make it more expensive for customers unless you watch very little TV. Only those that want some select show or two on some cable network could possibly benefit from getting rid of the cable TV model.
Then you have consider how this will affect your cable interest costs. If your cable company loses 1/2 of it 100,000 TV paying customers they still have to pay all the networks the same amount of money. So do they double the costs of their loyal TV viewing customers? Not without losing more TV viewing customers that way. They have to jack the prices on your internet service, they now throttle users speeds, they now put in upper level caps. You're also using more internet than before because that is where your content is coming from. Can you blame them for trying to protect their business? I can't.
I'd imagine Apple's initial solution would be flexible in terms of the bandwidth it requires. They could dynamically throttle the bandwidth based on what the receiving device reported back.
8mbit ADSL is fast enough for a single HD channel.
Fibre to the cabinet technology is certainly fast enough for multiple HD streams.
For the service to be valuable - it does not have to be available to every consumer.
C.
Seriously people here need to grap the basic concept of IPTV. google it or something. I have it, I know how it works and I am telling you its impossible to implenment a netflix style system for TV. Bell fibe offers it in canada and I think AT&T has the same system in the US. Go get see how it works or something.
It sounds great, but I haven't heard anything yet that would allow me to dump my cable provider (Comcrap, which I'd sorely love to do.) I'd still have to use them for broadband Internet.
For better or worse, Comcast is in position to essentially clear whatever content deal Apple puts together if Apple wants it to be comprehensive.
Comcast is the default cable provider is numerous markets. Comcast owns or controls NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC Sports (Versus until January 2012), USA, SciFi and Bravo, owns the rights to most of the shows that air on all of those networks, and owns the rights to a huge TV catalog.
And Comcast owns one of the major film studios and a huge film catalog.
Disney, Fox, WB, and Paramount will all come along when it gets time to make a deal. If there is a potential holdout that Apple would go forward without, it's probably CBS.
That would be a nice concept if it woud be possible to implement. To do this Apple would need to build data centers in each city and send only SD feeds. Netflix, which is a single feed stream is already choking the internet. Forget about feeding multiple HD feeds to large quantities of household, its just not possbile.
Apple already are streaming HD movies to anyone who rents them. The internet has yet to die.
Most TV is much more heavily compressed.
There's a gaming service called "onLive" - it lets users play video games, which are running on PCs in a data centre. It does this by streaming video (at quite high definitions and high frame rates) from the data centre to each user. Impossible as this sounds, it works today. And we can assume that within 18months, Moore's law will let it work twice as good.
If onLive is viable, AppleTV is more viable.
C.